Imported Beef Off The Menu For North Korean Despot

You may have read that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il likes to eat donkey meat, which he terms "heavenly cow," but the sawed-off little Socialist apparently also has a hankering for beef.

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You may have read that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il likes to eat donkey meat, which he terms "heavenly cow," but the sawed-off little Socialist apparently also has a hankering for beef.

It's for that reason that beef has turned up on the list of 24 luxury items banned from Japanese export to North Korea as part of U.N. Security Council resolution 1718. The measure, enacted in response to North Korea's Oct. 9 nuclear test, calls on U.N. member states to ban export of weapons technology and luxury goods.

The 24 items include beef, tuna meat, caviar and its substitutes, liquor, cars, motorcycles, motorboats, yachts, watches, cameras, audio and video devices, movie and music software, jewelry, carpets and tobacco. A Japan Times article says Kim is believed to favor such items for his personal use and as rewards for loyalty from the impoverished nation's power elite.-- Joe Roybal